Can Better Online Visibility Disrupt Offline Retail?

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At MTA, Chitra creates research-based content that reflects the dynamics of the martech industry. She also lends her expertise to help plan and execute diverse campaigns, events & content strategies on the MTA platform, based on unique client needs. With over 15 years of experience in strategic marketing and communications, she has a great grasp on the way marketing professionals approach technology, their need to evolve and transform as marketers in the digital age, and the challenges therein. Specializing in Content Strategy, Digital Marketing and Loyalty Marketing; and having worked on both the marketer and the vendor side, Chitra has a knack for writing about martech in a way that simplifies this complex landscape for the end-reader, while still addressing the depth and layers of the subject. Chitra has studied media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and worked at blue chip companies including Timken, Tata Sky and Procter & Gamble (P&G).

No matter how addicted you have become to Amazon, an alternative always seems like a good idea. Plus, some of us still enjoy a little stroll down to the neighborhood store to pick up stuff we want at once.

Both online shopping and local retail stores have their advantages. For example, why wait for or pay Amazon to deliver things that are easily available down the street? Plus, there is no risk of any nasty surprises. On the other hand, which one of us haven’t been annoyed by the local store saying ‘sorry we don’t have that in stock’ right after you took a detour in rush hour traffic to ‘pick up something’ perfectly common?

Erratic stocking of stuff aside, can local offline shops really compete with online giants on variety and price? Curiosity got the better of us when we heard about Pointy - a device that claims it could help local offline retailers make a dent to the fortunes of Amazon and Co.

Because we hardly see anything disruptive in the offline brick and mortar shopping space, we need to set some context and that’s why we are getting into the details of what this device actually does. Here’s how Pointy works:

It is based on the principle that the crux of making local, offline retail tick is to make the retailers- and their entire stock - visible to more online shoppers. Retailers connect a Pointy box (see picture) to their barcode scanner, (or one of a few popular POS systems), and all of the inventory gets listed onto the Pointy site – no data entry needed. The store then comes up on Google search local listings, and its integrated with Google’s ‘see what’s in store’ feature, which is an additional way for shoppers to discover what the store stocks and sells. Finally, Pointy offers an optional service to run ads on the Google network. Retailers pay a one-time fee to secure the device, and then they can opt for some premium features for an additional monthly fee. Pointy only works on products (and not services) because it needs a barcode to accept the entry.

Would you – as a shopper - consider this an innovation you’d like to see more of in the offline retail space? This quick chat with Mark Cummins, CEO of Pointy might help you answer that!

MTA:Local or offline retailers have struggled against online retailers for a number of reasons. From erratic stocking of stuff (turning customers away because something is not in stock), higher prices due (compared to e-tailing), fewer choices/ variants in stock and home delivery. Pointy makes local stores and the inventory they carry visible to more online shoppers, thus giving them an option to go get it directly, at once. How is that going to be a big differentiator for them?

MARK: A lot of the times when a customer is searching for something locally, convenience is their biggest concern. By optimizing brick & mortar retailer’s products for local search, we are highlighting the huge proximity advantage they have over online giants.

The Pointy website shows customers whether a product is in-stock or out of stock before they visit the store. This feature helps retailers to keep tabs on their product inventory and provides a better overall experience for the customer.

MTA: But it’s not just the local retailers’ issues that send customers online. Consumer behavior is simply changing. Immersive buying experiences, in-video and in-social media shopping, and subscription shopping even for monthly basics and groceries is increasingly mainstreamed. How do you see Pointy helping local retailers reshape buyer habits when it comes to shopping locally? Are there certain categories of products / kinds of stores you think will do better than others?

MARK: For today’s busy customer's convenience is king. They want instant gratification and Pointy is helping retailers to provide this. Usually when a customer does a local Google search for a product all they see is results for e-commerce giants like Amazon and no local purchase option. Pointy is changing this by making the local retailer more visible and making it as easy for a customer to buy a product in their local store as it is to buy it online.

MTA: With the Google partnership, you are aiming to address multiple points where the customers can make a choice - “See What's In Store” (allows local stores to display their inventory directly on Google); Google Knowledge Panel (where the store inventory appears); and visibility on Google Maps. With all the noise around customer data privacy, how do you and Google plan to use data and insights from the ecosystem to help sharpen the outcomes for retailers?

MARK: Privacy is a definitely a huge topic on people's minds right now. There's a greater awareness of the issue generally, and also new regulations like GDPR to consider. On the other hand, not all data is privacy sensitive. A lot of data is non-personal and really pretty innocuous, but can still be helpful for retailers to optimize their business. For example, things like out-of-stock information or aggregate demand information. One of the highest impact things we can do for retailers is to help them allocate advertising budget across their product range optimally, without needing personally identifiable information. That's data-driven but doesn't raise any privacy concerns. As for Google, I can't speak for them, they certainly work more with personal data, but their privacy policies around that are pretty clear. They have done some pretty impressive technical work on privacy in this area, for example on techniques like "double-blind encryption".

MTA: Retail tech is usually associated with improving online retail outcomes. What are the exciting trends in offline retail tech (aside from what Pointy is doing) that you are tracking or you think have the potential to disrupt or improve things for brick and mortar retailers?

MARK: There are a number of different trends that are helping retailers to create a more personalized in-store experience for customers. Bluetooth beacon providersenable retailers to deliver personalized in-store offerings by tracking shopping habits and preferences via Bluetooth enabled devices.

Mobile payment options such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, and mobile wallets are enabling shoppers to purchase products in-store using their smartphones. This contributes to the seamless in-store experience that millennial shoppers crave.

The space has evolved rapidly over the last few years as people begin to understand how important in-store experience is to shoppers and how they want informed, customized experiences in which retail professionals make recommendations tailored to their specific needs.

So, what do you think? Offline retail is ripe for disruption and there is the need to leverage technology to help make it more competitive against online retail. For us, initiatives such as Pointy are a step in the right direction, and we’ll be tracking this space to see how it develops! Know of any other offline retail tech initiatives worth sharing? Let us know!

More about Mark

Mark Cummins is CEO of Pointy and previously worked at Google on the search team. Pointy is his second company, his first company having been acquired by Google in 2010. Mark holds a PhD in Robotics from Oxford.